Fantales opens and then sold

I was now in a relationship with Anya Seleki who was an actress in daytime soap called 96 and we had moved in together into an apartment in Ranelagh in Edgecliff. At the same time I was about to open "Fantales" we had to get the publicity machine rolling as this was a totally different ballgame to the Northside and the "Grape" and to some extent we were in uncharted waters.We had no problems in getting a crowd together for opening night as by now we had good network of customers.

 Entertainment was also another card we intended to play at Fantales as we had a baby grand and stage lounge and one large room with no sight barriers, good acoustics.So as much as good food we intended to provide live entertainment on trading nights. Our resident pianist was Frank Mitchell and our week- end entertainment was the Palm Court Orchestra a foursome from the Sydney Conservatorium and we used Chris Carvin to help with promotions and new entertainment.

We had been open about two weeks and were not breaking any world records with takings when Leo Schofieldand his wife Anne and children popped by for a meal.  Leo was the main food critic for the Sydney Morning Herald and that weekend wrote a stunningly positive, glowing critique, on "Fantales", giving it top marks on food and service and on the strength of that write up, we were packed the following night and trading looked rosy.

The uniqueness size and entertainment factor kicked it along and also, free editorials, all very good and authentic with a lot of theatre. Lindsay Kemp was in town with his Mime Troupe and on two Sunday evenings consecutively he and his troupe of ten paraded a rang of Kabuki traditional antique costumes that Elaine Townsend had bought in Japan on her last trip.The article written by Leslie Walford was equally effective in advertising Fantales to a gay following.

We constructed a twenty meter catwalk that led to the stage and in between courses of exotic Asian and Szechuan dishes, the lights would be lowered and the music cranked up some Oriental, Didgeridoo music and these ten gays would waltz doing there thing. 

Another night we hosted the Tibetan Dance and Ballet Company but. they dad not dance just ate.

I  had got to know a Korean man, through " Fantails" called  Kent King Poo Koo who we had used as our agent when I went on the buying trip to Asia and who also became a regular customer.We were having trouble with finances,  as mentioned only two of us had put up funds of $15,000 each, Sid Preston did not have any funds, which was really our downfall as that additional money would have got us out of the shit, which we now found ourselves in.

We did not have a good handle on the Kitchen, supplies were being bought in Chinatown with invoices in Chinese making it difficult for stock takes and book keeping, our chefs had trouble speaking English they were all mainly Chinese whilst the Asians preferred front of house and the floor. Thinks !!! we had made a rod for our backs, the creative side was working, but the management back of house was not a strong point of mine. I think we may have been feeding a lot of staff as I am sure we were being ripped off.

 It looked like a further injection of capital was needed and I was not forthcoming as my enthusiasm was waning. My creative juices were burnt out and right from the start I had not felt right about the whole venture and had put another three grand into the pot - 'Listen to your inner voices Anthony' - Kent King Koo Poo offered to take it off our hands, but  there was no money in his deal. We  would assign the lease over to his company and he would take over the debts and also the furniture and fittings would become his property. I thought about the offer for a  a few days and  decided to cut my losses and split.

 Anya had been talking of going to New York and I liked London so we decide to go to Bali and say goodbye there, which we did.

Fantales - a new restaurant venture

After depositing thirty thousand dollars in the bank I decided to go up to Byron Bay to lick my wounds and stay with Jo Mathews who  with his brother Robert had adjoining farms up in the hills in Federal behind Byron Bay. Paul Quiney was staying there and I had always harboured an idea of buying an old farm house and doing it up.


 Which nearly happened to be the case, as through  contacts I heard of a couple who had an option on a farm in Possum Creek of 150 acres with an old farm house, they wanted to divide the property in two and buy with another person as tenants in common.This was acceptable to me, as they did not want the farm house section, or the the part of the boundary which was Possum Creek which had a fifteen foot waterfall and water hole and small rainforest.


Any way this was not to be as another friend Sid Preston who had Dionysus Restaurant in Milsons Point and was now out of that and his marriage, asked me to come to Sydney to look at a site in Camperdown to see if I thought it had relevance for a another restaurant.  Which I did and ended up not proceeding with the farm in Byron but becoming involved in another restaurant project.


The site chosen was an old Pizza Parlour on the corner of Parramatta Road and Prymont Bridge Road, Camperdown, it reminded me of a medium size aircraft hangar with parking for about ten cars.The interior already had a bar and kitchen which we gutted and rebuilt and relocated the entrance from Parramatta Road to another from the car park leading into the middle of the restaurant.


To make this restaurant work  and have an impact and to get people from the north and eastern suburbs to the inner west the concept needed to be radical and different to anything in Sydney .
A South East Asian concept  was conceived and I went on a whirlwind  buying trip through Hong Kong, Manila and Bangkok , buying all the furniture,fittings, artefact's, crockery glassware and at the same time checking out restaurants and menus and recipes. I filled up  two containers, as on our estimation the site could seat about 250 people. 


The funds came from me and Sid Preston's brother in law, Sid had no funds, how I got roped into this must have had something to do with  what I was smoking at the time - dumb!! Lesson never go into a business venture unless the partnerships are equal.


 In the mid seventies there were a lot of Vietnamese refugees in Villawood Detention center and Vietnamese cooking was the flavour of the month. So we took ourselves out to Villawood and ended up interviewing most of them and employing several. Others  we employed were Asian students at University of NSW and Sydney University  which was only half a mile away. We outfitted the male floor staff in the traditional Barong Tagalog shirts I had bought in the Phillipines and the women wore their own Asian styles as their were a mix of Vietnamese, Phillipino,Thai,Chinese Malays and Indonesians.When they all came to work and changed into their outfits they looked very exotic and handsome in appearance.


As was the restaurant by the time the internal construction was completed and the interior was decked out. The lights were large glass antique Indian hurricane lamps strung around a high ceiling that I had found in a grungy back alley antique shop in Manilla.The lamps had to be electrified as they were candle powered. The colour scheme was sky blue ceiling and Pink walls, coir matting for floor coverings, beautiful  cane furniture and place settings of traditional blue and white Chinese crockery.The restaurant was set up in two sections, one section was in front of an open sided kitchen. In the centre a raised lounge cum stage was built and a white grand Piano bought and installed surrounded by large comfy cane lounges. The other section was and indoor arbour we built with a landscape mural on the far wall. At the entrance  a Pagoda style porch was designed and built which led to wide brick steps leading down inside to a waiting area, where an enormous rectangular aquarium was installed with tropical fish that died all the time from the smoke in the atmosphere.

The kiitchen was rejigged with woks and steamers and a Menu put together consisting of Asian,Szechuan and Chinese Village style cooking,which had never before done in Sydney. Our First Chef was a Chinese Malay called Hoppy Ho who ripped us off blind as all the bills were written in Chinese as the buying was done in China town and the accounts could not be reconciled as they did not understand what was being bought. Our next chefs were from Schechuan in China and this cooking was new to Sydney. Schechuan was a mountain province in Western China and their cooking was noted for the seven tastes; hot, numb,salty, fragrant,sweet,sour, bitter and proved very popular with the Asian cooking especially Vietnamese.

Holidaying in Rio, New York and Big Sur

Rio was as remembered, except better, this time we stayed in the Copacabana Palace Hotel in the Presidential Suite for a week, which cost a bomb.We were all doing OK financially so money was not a big issue, as it was on my last visit. As I had local knowledge from last time we decided to go to all the great parties  during Carnival. 


At one of them, the Grand Palace Ball, we had secured tickets through the hotel concierge, and as this was the " Big One" which was attended by Brazil's 'whose who' we  dressed up in dinner suits.
Looking smart and enjoying the night, every thing was cool, when Monte...... who must have had to much of whatever !!! was flirting with some Brazilian babes at the next table, telling them " Australians were great dancers", to prove his point, he jumped onto their table and 'dancing the light fantastic' to the band which was playing, fell arse over head and destroyed  there table for eight.

 Later on, about 10.30 in the evening, our table was approached by  security and two couples,the women were beautifully dressed and looked sensational, apparently we had been sold their table. As we could not understand Portuguese, we were not privy to questions being asked about issues and what was going on !! We had paid big bucks for our tickets, however having a table was not that important as we knew the three of us would be floating and Monte had ' done a job on the neighbouring table'. We  decided we would give up the table and just circulate. Just as we decided to explain that to them, one of the women lent over the table where we were seated, an lifted  the champagne bottle out of the ice bucket , she then picked up the ice bucket and dumped it over my head. With that done, there was no  deal- we stayed there. It was a very hot night and I dried off quickly and the night then just kept on getting better.


Our days started late, normally a quick surf, our  saving grace was the beach across the road and then we would adjourn to the hotels pool which was  half Olympic size and was surrounded with cabanas and hundred of lounges and 'the beautiful people'. 


 The hotel's "Veranda Restaurant,"overlooked Copacabana Beach and the other side overlooked and catered for the hotel's cabanas around the pool. Style - very colonial, great service and  live music -  Latin with  African drums, rhythmical, so much so that every one was  either dancing or walking to the beat, this was constant from early afternoon right through the night.The nights around the gardens and  pool  were dreamy and magical, as each evening progressed into night  and  early mornings would see the three of us with entourage at the "Black Rhinoceros"another sensational Rio Night spot.


After Rio the other two winged it back home and I took off for New York via the West Indies staying with friends, (the Bridges)  In St John, the Virgin Islands. Rod Bridges was professor of music at the College of the Virgin Islands and an old New York muso who played the flute with the big bands such as Benny Goodman, everything was "solid" with Rod - * You guys ready - solid". Rod introduced me to Tommy Smith the black athlete who won gold at the Mexico Olympics and gave the black power salute. Tommy was in charge of students staying on campus and track and field for the college.


My next port of call was Barbados where I stayed for a few days at "Sandy Lane"one of the great  hotels on the Caribbean, every thing about this hotel is right on point, the location on one of the whitest, softest, sandy beaches, the hotel is gentle and low rise, unobtrusive and laid back.Then off to New York.


I stayed in New York with another Australian friend Phil English who was working as an actor on one of the  television soaps.I contact Ray Holberton who was the Australian Trade Commissioner who I had met before  when he was in Montreal. I explained that I wanted to meet up with and visit some of the great restaurant and their owners and be taken back of house.  From the list I rattled off, the one the he knew was the 21 Club, knowing one of the owners Jack Kreindler  and would ring him on my behalf and get back to me which he did and arranged me to  meet. 


The "21" as it's known, is three brownstones, that when I was there in '74 had been operating as a restaurant for 70 years. Jack Kreindler and his partner Charlie Berns, both in their mid seventies,had had it since prohibition times. He was so hospitable, he had lunch with me and I sat in his booth next to the kitchen in the grill/bar room. Prior to that I had been taken on a morning tour throughout the function rooms of which there were ten, by Joe Dinan who was the nephew of Charlie Berns and, the cellars - which housed private bins for any one who was anyone - Onassis, the Kennedy's, there was a small wine museum, a secret wall which opened, when a steel rod was inserted into a nondescript hole in the wall, on a swivel used for keeping booze hidden during prohibition.


After my tour and during lunch I was asked what I thought  about the memorabilia hanging from the ceiling, which I had not noticed. Looking up I could see what looked like large toys suspended from the ceiling.I asked "what was the story",  Jack recalled, he was lunching  with Howard Hughes in the same booth where we were having our lunch, not long after they had opened, and  Howard Hughes thought that the ceiling was to high, and that he would give them the model of the "Spruce Goose" to suspend and by the reducing the height of the ceiling. Then he suggested Jack should contact Henry Ford and Jack Chrysler and get their models, which was done, and now they had a virtual museum of American transport suspended from the ceiling.


They very kindly organised me introductions to the rest of the restaurants I wanted to visit which included - Four Seasons, Luchows, Sardis, Maxwell Plumbs and PJ Clarks.


Of those, "Luchows" impressed me the most as  this was enormous restaurant opposite Steinway in Gramercy Park, near Union Square. It was the size of the GPO in Sydney. A block long between 13th and 14th Streets  and specialised in German cuisine. The General Manager was a young Lithuanian and controlled a staff  of about 300, the place ran like an international hotel with its own baker, butcher, patisserie and turned over 1500 covers a day and had been operating for ninety seven years.The uniforms the staff wore were modelled on Prussian officers, dark blue with gold epaulet's, with gold crown for ten years of service.


The function rooms were named after famous New Yorkers who were regular customer like, Diamond Jim Brady who apparently had the appetite of ten men and the actress and his dining companion, Lillian Russell.The German food specials were : schnitzels, wild game, knackwurst and sauerkraut. Decor art Nouveau- bevelled mirrors, artwork and oil paintings of Bacchus, ornate crytsal chandeliers,high ceilings, carved joinery,loud atmosphere, a cross between a German beer hall and Palm Court with live oompah orchestra in the background.


The other two I liked was; PJ Clarks, an Irish Bar which was a one story corner building set amongst Manhattans Skyscrapers,  over 110 years old, that served great martinis in it's front bar which was the quintessence of Manhattan Bars, from the apron clad no nonsense barmen to the amazing stock of alchoholic beverages displayed and shelved above, below and behind the bar.  Brunch and diner served in the back dining room specialising in Eggs Benedict, Goat Cheese Omelet and Egg Sandwich Burger.


The newest edition of restaurants opened in New York was the Four Seasons Restaurant on the ground floor  in the Seagram's Building. Opened  in 1959 with huge fanfare due to its cost of three million dollars,touted as the most expensive restaurant  opened in the world. It broke new ground by providing it's clientele with seasonal menus, all American wine list, and artwork by Picasso, Jackson Pollock and the restaurant designed by Mies van der Rohe.


San Francisco beckoned and old mates to meet up with, Richard Ovington was there as was Paul Olin, both whom  I stayed with and  married to American wives Arlene and Marion respectively. From San Francisco I went to Carmel and met up with another friend Paul Quiney who had just opened a small restaurant in Cannery Row in Monterey, called "Quiggs Downunder". He was battling along so I decide to give him a hand and stay awhile. 


We saw an advertisement for a "cabin for let" in the local newspaper, in Bixby Canyon in Big Sur, a part of California I have always liked and the opportunity to stay there was to good to be missed.  We drove down to check it out and not to our surprise we discovered this two bedroom log cabin of our dreams, beside a fast running stream, which was a hundred yards from the beach, in this private canyon,which had only five other similar type log cabins. Key entry via  three meter high wooden gates making it all the more secluded.We met the owners a young couple who had inherited the cabin from their parents and were off to LA to work on a movie and they wanted to rent it for three months which suited us, as I intended to only stay for a couple of weeks and Paul thought he could rent my room when I left.


Big Sur is a majestic part of California, acouple of hundred K's south of SF,where the mountains come down to meet the coast and Highway One is cut into the cliff face with sheer drops of hundreds of feet to the crashing waves below with sheer cliffs above and then open sky, with  breaks in these cliffs that are indented by canyons that lead into the mountains, forests and wilderness.Over Bixby Canyon there is a viaduct that Highway One traverses over and hundreds of meters below you can see the beach.


Here I hung out for a month walking in the redwood forest, running on the beach, jumping into the ocean which was freezing and barking at the seals that used to come right into  the shoreline. I think they must have heard about these mad Aussies moving into Bixby Canyon and they came down for a bow peep. Virginia a friend of Pauls who was staying for a weekend up from LA, thought I should get back to civilization after seeing me running up and down the beach in the nude,  jumping into the water playing"Catch" with the seals obviously the Angel Dust was having an effect.




 I flew back to Sydney to be confronted by Warwick Moss and Graham Shields who in unison had decided that I was not wanted as a working partner and as I had run up the "Grapes" Amex overseas, I was considered irresponsible, considering the debt they were in, which was  a fair enough point. So after negotiating with Jack Moss, Warwick's father who was the partner and Geof Paarl our bank manager, I decided I wanted a payout in total from the business and property, as I was not wanted, I wanted totally out,  for which I was paid for my third share in the business and the property.

Rebuilding the "Grape Escape"

Another local Peter Johnstone, a plumber took on the reigns as the builder. We kept the "Grape" trading for as long as possible whilst we did construction work work around the existing business, as we needed every dollar we could rouse up.


We eventually had to close  after a complaint from a customer, that a piece of ceiling plaster had fallen onto his plate as he was enjoying lunch, because there was construction work being done upstairs.On the Saturday I decided to have an auction of all the tat and brica - brac, furnishings not being used when we reopened. Harvey Dewshore became the auctioneer and sold most of what was to be auctioned in the afternoon, that night became a wild night, more so, as when we closed the bar and went to do the tills to count  the nights takings, the bank bag with the auction money had disappeared and never was found.

This was a major rebuild compared to what  had been done in the past. There was building to be done on all three levels, up until now we had only used the ground floor and the cellar underneath the bar.Besides the construction work, there was also the sourcing and purchasing of the new furnishings, fittings and equipment that was to be installed into the new areas. Such as the new dining room upstairs with it's own Kitchen. Extending the existing kitchen, as downstairs was being nearly doubled in capacity, as the toilets at the end of the bar  had been deemed inadequate by the licensing police so were relocated  downstairs and twice the size plus we built an office .By doing this, the bar became larger and from the bar you walked out onto a veranda which was buit over the office, this area seated another twenty five or so.

North Sydney Council was supportive of our plans, I think this was helped by Carol Baker who was the Lord Mayoress and a frequent customer, also we got along well with Licensing and the North Sydney Police ,as we kept a tidy house downstairs, what happened upstairs, was our business. We were three young blokes, healthy and fit, becoming wealthy,  I lacked wisdom but had plenty of vision. I was starting to take out Ave Wilson  and we were becoming an item, she was working at the Grape and helping with the upstairs restaurant


I was starting to feel the pressure now the Grape was closed, to finish the rebuild and get the place reopened, and start making some dollars as our debts were mounting. I was hooking into a fair bit of dope at the time and that was not the wisest move as I really needed my wits about me. 


I went back to my parents home one time during the day,in that period of closedown.
I did not think any of my folks were at  home. The gardens at the back of the house are steep, terraced and kept natural with a creek at the bottom, in the middle of the creek  was a big rock that I used to sit on when I was a kid and look up at the immense size of the Gum Trees and watch the water swirl around either side of the rock, especially after heavy rains.  We were the last house in the street,  our back garden was very private, though it had no fence and adjoined and  looked over the first tee of the Lane Cove Country Club. it was surrounded by bush and people could not see into our property. I was sitting there remembering how Mum and Dad had built the house and the garden over years and I started to cry and cry and could not stop, feeling remorse, drugs and booze do that  to me.Out of no where, Mum  quietly with out a word appeared behind me, and gently started massaging my neck and  shoulders, until I finished crying, and just as quietly as she came, she went .Oh! I miss them both.



We re opened after being closed for about six weeks, prematurely, the glass still had to be installed into the timber frames of the windows in the new veranda off the bar. One customer thought it,' a creative way of air conditioning'.

Once all done the place looked fantastic - though there was a fair bit of fine tuning, to be done on service and cuisine, and completion of the backyard which was still a tip for demolition works, and was the last job to be done, in completing the scope of works.
There were some inconsistencies and mistakes that I made, in furniture selection for the veranda and the menu was to big. Conceptually, the three levels were now being utilised 100%, as an operational "Grape Escape" and had a capacity of fifty diners upstairs with it's own kitchen. An enlarged downstairs kitchen that caters to another hundred diners with increased bar area that could accommodate another fifty or so, and the garden another fifty- in all the 'Grape' could cater for a couple of hundred customers in one sitting.


I was feeling pretty washed up at this stage, having completed the design and construction program, co ordinated all the trades and consultants. Sourced and installed new furnishings, antiques and equipment, employed and trained new staff for kitchen, bar and floor. Created with the chefs, new menus for lunch and diner for bistro and our French la carte restaurant upstairs and organised marketing and opening nights. 


 I decided, after we had been opened for a few weeks, a holiday was in order and with Tony Flook and Monte Gildea we flew to Rio de Janeiro for Carnivale for a week, and then the plan was onto New York to check out some restaurants, then San Francisco to see old mates and home.I left the 'Grape' in the hands of Graham and Warwick, hoping all would be well on my return.

We buy the place

As much as the lunch time was busy, it was the evening trade that made the Grape Escape as popular as it was. It became an after work place to have a drink,  a neighbourhood waterhole,a place for "boy meets girl", a general meeting place for a drink and to listen to some good music.Most nights it was busy and we were open seven days a week.


We had only been trading for six months when we bought the building, 139-141 Blues Point Road for $42,000 and after twelve months we decide to redecorate - which in those days was unheard of. I had latched onto that idea from some of the bar and restaurant owners in San Francisco. We used the same interior decorators that John & Merivale used for their boutiques, as Terry and I were frequent shoppers at Mr Johns in King Street, he had good boots.

 Deciding on a Victoriana Theme,  the walls painted a gloss burgundy/red patina, wainscoting around all the walls, the panelling stained cedar, an array of antique light fittings throughout and we revealed the staircase to open up the entry hall. The furniture changed from Captains Chairs to Bentwood and we were ready for our second opening night.

This time around it was different as we knew everyone we were inviting and the whole exercise was excellent PR and helped establish the "Grape". Mind you there was a fair amount of competition starting to evolve - 'The Stoned Crow' in Crows Nest had recently been opened by Warwick Short and 'Dionysus ' in Milsons Point at a similar time by Robyn Fiorelli and Sid Preston and the Bengal Curry House in North Sydney owned by Ron Roberts and David Naish, Dick and Maureen Thornett had the "Rag and Famish" Hotel in North Sydney.


We were all friendly rivals and often we drank at each others establishments and became good friends.Many times we would be out having drinks when our own customers would join us, one place this happened often was Johnny Walkers Bistro in Angel Place. There was a regular team that would meet up most Fridays for lunch, sometimes twenty or so, with lunch disappearing into evenings into mornings and Oh! No! another hangover from to much red, port and herb superb.


Thank God we were young fit and bullet proof and also that there were two of us involved in the management. To commence we started of doing shifts of day, on day off, which meant we would start at around 10am setting up for lunch and then go through and close in the early days at 10pm which was a 12 hour shift, later the license allowed 12 pm close. As we became more organised we worked, week on and week off. 


I moved down to Whale Beach and rented an old stone cottage in Bynya Road, this allowed me to get away totally as before, I had been living either upstairs on premises, or renting  an apartment  nearby in McMahons point. Now moving to Palm Beach gave me a total break. This also renewed my love of the surf ,ocean, and getting fit. After I had settled in,  I would go down to Palm Beach and go up into the sand hills at the northern end, underneath Barrenjoey Headland, and run till I dropped and then throw myself into the surf and finish up exhausted, lying on a towel in the sun letting it's energy revive me and go and do it again a bit less each time,three or four times, until I was to tired and just lay there in the sun.Moving down there was like being on holidays, every second week I would go on hols, and hang out on the beach.There was a solid team of friends living on the Northern Beaches so you did not lack for company if you wanted it. Most of the time I was happy just to be on my own or with Ave.By the end of each week I would be well recharged and be ready for the "Grape" and the energy necessary to inject into the staff, the customers and running the business. It was "full on"for both lunch and diner and to top it off we were "very social", not necessarily when we were working.  During opening hours we did not drink much until the night started to wind down and then we would start to wind up. 


The enthusiasm of the "Grape Escape" manifested  with us, the staff and regular customers for  a couple of years in that time we achieved a lot for some blokes who had never been in business before or together as partners. It had been two years of living, breathing, working and falling in love with the "Grape" couple with all that it, being closely involved in a partnership with Terry who was the best bloke to be in partnership like this with.We had such a great time right from the inception in putting it altogether and then operating it.Our management skills were definitely inclined towards marketing, public relations, designing and refurbishment as we were always building and extending. We enjoyed each others company and we were not competitive of one another, though we we both had competitive characteristics, we did not agree all the time,Terry though it through more than I would I be more instinctive and rush in to it. An example of that was when I suggested after we had been trading for about a year and the place was humming, that we should redecorate and update, close down for a week and relaunch. Terry initially found this hard to grasp as we were doing such good business. I had seen this concept of redecorating /refurbish work well with some of the bars in Union Street,San Francisco, namely "The Camelot" and  Perry's which is still going strong after trading for 43 years, being opened by Perry Butler in 1969 and still there is testament to a well run restaurant that keeps current with the trends in the hospitality industry.


As we became more and more popular  the licensing police started to have a conversation that our toilet facilities were not coping with the  crowd and numbers  we were attracting, especially on Fridays and Saturdays.Which in essence meant that we had to come up with larger male and female toilets.


So I resolved a plan with Warren Firkin to extend the building into the back yard which increased the ground floor and basement with new toilets and larger cellar, office and storage and on the ground level increased the kitchen, bar and gave a new back veranda room.We opened upstairs as a stand alone restaurant, with new kitchen and separate French Menu, own toilets and a veranda with views of Lavender Bay. Warren drew this up and costed it  and we gave ourselves a budget of $130,000, we approached Penfolds Wines  who arranged a  loan of $130,000 and we proceeded to rebuild the "Grape" to double it's size after our development application was approved by North Sydney council.

We decided on what a third of the business was worth - $15,000, as Terry did not sell his share in the property at that time. I looked for a new partner to take over Terry's  role, which was a hard act to follow. Robert Highfield  tried and borrowed from his dad $15k but that did
 not work out, Robert thought it was 100% party time, which it was not especially with the rebuild. Graham Shields came on board, I met Graham and ended up sharing a place in Salisbury, Rhodesia with him a couple of years back and advised him to get the fuck out of there and meet up with mates of mine in San Francisco, which he did. 


Now he was my partner in the Grape as he had just returned to Sydney and needed a gig so his folks leant him fifteen big ones which he gave to me and I gave  back to Bob Highfield's Dad.

Our Star Lunch Customers

After we had been open for about six weeks we were getting an indication on who were becoming regulars some for lunch other in the evening and other week ends.


Lunch as we anticipated was popular with Film, Advertising and TV - North Sydney,Crows Nest, Milsons Point and Mac Mahons Point was where they were based and  the "Grape Escape" was bang in the middle and we captured that market for many years way after the three of us had departed. we regularly used to do in excess of 100 covers daily. 


The long lunch was popular and enjoyed by a lot of people many of them not with us now, Eric Porter was one who brought us a lot of business, not only for lunch. His animated film studios were literally a hundred meters away he would normally arrive with at least five or six of his management or clients, or both at least twice a week and then there was his top staff who were all such good customers and who brought so many people for for  lunch or drinks.

Next would have to be Tony Flook, Tony had a small chain of fashion boutiques in North Sydney and the City called "Flookies".Tony and I became solid friends and he loved the "Grape" so much that he moved his office into a large terrace directly opposite.  We both shared the same bank Manager, Geof Paal from the Bank of NSW at North Sydney, where eventually Tony took over the banks premises and turned it into a fashion complex.Tony was popular, with plenty of mates and girlfriends and he also liked a good lunch as much as getting smashed on those many nights that we enjoyed at the Grape and then continuing into the night to the Bengal or Chequers.


Tony introduced a whole team to the Grape Escape, he came from the Northern Beaches and a lot of these people worked all over the place and became regulars due to Tony's patronage and the bar was their meeting place.Mind you there was plenty to attract single good looking blokes from the beaches. As much as we employed some good looking ladies we also encouraged single good looking ladies to become customers. 

As an incentive to keep the 'status quo' Terry came up with the Idea of "Man of the Week" and "Girl of the Week".There were two blackboards behind the Bar which had the drink list chalked up and Lunch specials. We dedicated the bottom space on both boards to writing this up every Monday morning after deciding who they would be. The deciding factor would normally be if they were seen constantly on premises.


Lockie Maher was another lunchtime regular his agency Maher Shennon were good customers even after an altercation over me charging by the glass for Para Port and Lockie disagreeing as he reckoned he should get bottle prices as they drank so much of it by the glass.Terry and I knew Lockie from Rugby as he used to play for Northern Suburbs- however Neil his partner was an equally good customer as we knew many agency people would.


Another character was Ian Hart who owned Seeka Productions, a fim production group, with Ross Nicholls a camera man. Hart loved a drink, and a practical joke, one of his drinking mates was Ian Everingham who was also in advertising, they were big men, Hart was a Pom and supposedly ex commando and programmed to kill. The two of them were drinking at one end of the bar, late one afternoon and I was at the other end talking with Flookie - they had not been there long, and had obviously been elsewhere for lunch,  and I could see from their behaviour and loud laughter  they were  pissed. I had my back to them, and un noticed Ian had wandered over, as if to talk to us, as I turned around he caught me with a punch into my solar plexus and I doubled up coughing and spluttering. He quickly said "I did it for a bet" before Flookie and I responded - I looked over and Hart was pissing himself, yelling out " we wanted to see if you could take a joke"


Others that come to mind were the blokes who owned the construction group RLM, Bob Rose, Rob Laing and Ian MacAskill.They used to like the eye candy behind the bar, a relief from the blokey world of construction.Ron Allen and Ian Keirnan  also used to enjoy  checking out the girls at the Grape, Ron helped early in the opening stages by passing the word around to some of the team on the Eastern Suburbs. Ross Renwick from the the Billy Blue group was another `lunch regular 'who I knew from Bilgola Life Savers when I was at school.  Wayne Young and Trevor Harrison who owned Spectrum always made and entrance as they were always were accompanied with with the  good sorts that worked with them like Kate Shea, Carol Lopes and Susie Petersen.


Nights was

Learning On the Job

We opened the "Grape" with great fanfare and little money. If it was not an immediate hit we would be out the door the next month, as we had no contingency or funds. so it was do or die.


It was a Saturday afternoon, early evening opening and three hundred were invited which included all media.We invited everyone we knew and plenty we did not. We provided a blanket invitation to Vivian's Modelling Agency, who provided plenty of good looking ladies. All the ladies we employed were wearing hot pants and looked sensational behind the bar and weaving through the crowd with trays of hors d'ouvres and drinks.


There was good mix of social, business, sporting people spread through out the invitation list which we had prepared ourselves and had done much of the distribution and delivering  to give that personal touch, adding when we delivered to mates or others that their friends were equally welcome. 


The place was busting at the seams, the atmosphere was pumped with loud music that was current to the time, people trying to talk over the music, and the air, smoke laden because the air conditioners were not able to handle the over burden. John Laws spent most of the time outside on the footpath talking with John Sevenoaks and old school mate.Inside was shoulder to shoulder mayhem, everyone enjoying the bon homie, free drinks and the excitement of meeting new people. A new place opening always generates excitement, the anticipation becomes contagious and word of mouth can spread like an outback bushfire which was the case with the the 'Grape Escape".


Everyone embraced the place from day one, the opening was so successful that no one could remember what it was like except they had a great time and they couldn't get back their quick enough to check it out again.People love to boast about a new discovery and that was the situation, the 'Grape' went off like a firecracker for lunch and evenings.We did not have time for nerves, the business drove us to such an extent, that it took off like a steam train careening out of control down a mountain track. 


There was a seating booth upholstered in red velvet, at one end of the bar, that sat about seven people around a polished timber oval table - the three of us were sitting there after the first close  of trading which was a Saturday night. All the staff had gone home, on the table were both tills with the nights takings in front of us and two of those cream coloured canvas bank money bags, chock a block filled with bank notes. We started to count and once we got to a couple of thousand dollars, we just stopped and threw the money in the air, opened a bottle of  Champagne and celebrated each other. We cherished each other, relishing the fact that we had achieved this dream. We were open, making money, self employed and plenty ahead to look forward to,we were still in our late twenties with energy to burn and ideas aplenty.


 We connected well  with, our  customers and especially our age age group,  including  the ladies that worked with us.We enjoyed being our own bosses and loved coming to work each day, we loved the people that worked with us and we loved our clients. we managed the place on two levels 
 --- --  As a party 
------   As a business


That pretty well became the culture, party was most nights especially Fridays and Saturdays nights. We were into music and always maintained a current range of music and updated our equipment so the Music became integral especially later at nights. In the early seventies there was such a great collection of music to fuse into a operation for lunch, dinner, evening drinks.
Both of us spent a fair bit of time selecting the music for each shift  so it was not repetitious, a small library had to bought and built on.In the evenings we were like dj's changing music to suit the crowd and conducting the mood. We played jazz more during the lunch, easy listening vocals and instrumental early evenings and later when it filled up  we would crank it up with  rock and R&B and Motown


We spent sometimes $200 a week, doe'snt sound like much now but in 1970 it was a lot, buying the tops from the Beatles, Stones,Doors, Stevie Wonder, Jimi, Bee Gees, Rod Stewart, Cat Stevens, Marvin Gay, Ray Conif, Motown was hitting it straps - the Supremes, Dianna Ross, Four Tops, Lou Rawles. Burt Bacharagh (Raindrops) etc - Their was such sensational music coming out in the seventies, that it was such a pleasure to fuse it into the way we ran the "Grape Escape" Music put everyone in a good mood, the staff as much as the customers. From the time we used to 'set up' the Grape in the morning for lunch, untill we closed, music was on. That was one of  the first upgrades ;  affording a commercial sound system that was well balanced through the rooms, getting the balance right, where you can hear the music and enjoy, but still hold a conversation- this is what we tried to achieve outside the bar area, after 10pm it was bullshit - good music, if you wanted to hold a conversation move to another room.


We tried and were OK with live stuff (Stevie Wright, Moonstone)  - the layout was better suited to forward background music, especially forward in the bar after 10pm, at least four nights a week. These nights would rev up into big nights, every Friday and Saturday night we would have two security on door an queues stretching around the corner.This kept on going for a few years, night in night out, we were in the first two years working on how to work the place and how it worked us.